This is difficult to navigate now, but I like the old look.

Dear Katniss,

I am in love with no one.  What do you think?

Sincerely,
Content

Content,

Jelly.

-Katniss

Katniss Everdeen, Agony Aunt

Dear Katniss,

I think that I like this boy, but I am not sure. He looks at me funny, and I think that he is interested because he follows me around school, but then he pretends that I make him sick. I am trying not to like him, but that just makes me like him more. Help!

Sincerely,

Torn

Torn,

You don't have time for this passive-aggressive shit. He clearly doesn't have a good or mature head on his shoulders if he keeps trying to play games. At best, he is confused and needs to grow up. At worst, he is a stalker who will murder you in your sleep, or worse, strip you of your identity, knock you up, and make you choose him over everything else you love. Don't be that girl.

-Katniss

Dear Katniss,

I hate my mom. Should I rebel against her?

Sincerely,

Sooooo maaaaaad

Dear Entitled Asshole,

My mom went into a depressed near-vegetative state when my father died in a ghastly coal mining explosion. Instead of running away, I stayed and took care of her and my starving sister.

I think that you are misreading my story. It is not about rebelling when things do not suit you. That is how our dystopic present got started. True, there are paralells to the American Revolution, what with the thirteen districts and insane tyrant who curtails liberty, but unlike the real American Revolution, the rebels are fighting for basic human rights, not entitlements.

No, my story is about a girl has had adulthood prematurely thrust upon her shoulders and must survive in a hostile world by any means necessary. I found that preserving my identity was a luxury, that, ironically, became a necessity to my survival.

Unless your mom is trying to make you kill your siblings in order to maintain power in your family via the method of fear, you should probably work things out like an adult before you ruin someone's fucking life.

-Katniss

So I have a couple of really half-assed crushes on boys going on, and one crush that I didn't realize that I've been nursing for possibly close to two years. What. The. Fuck. Especially with the two year crush.

Romance is so confusing, and I have just realized something that all of the children that I teach probably already know: fighting it just makes things unnecessarily complicated.

I think that I need to be open to getting hurt and being vulnerable. Except that I don't like that.

I'm feeling very unprepared for this upcoming school year. I'm frantically trying to remember the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs, whether it matters that I call things "verbals" or "helping verbs," and other trifling shit.

On the upside, hot Nini's guy turns out to be this dude that I went to middle school with - OMG.

I have this burning need to post about Taiwan. I went for a week, and I was confronted with how spoiled and annoying I am. That was not pretty. I should not have to get whiny over dirty public bathrooms or lack of toilet paper - I've traveled so much that this should be normal for me! It's just that I wanted to expect more from Taiwan - my people think that they are very civilized.

Here is what WAS pretty: Taiwan. It is a hot, humid armpit of an island in the summer, but it is a beautiful armpit. We toured the outer coast of the island, so I had the joy of seeing blue water in all of its glorious and subtle shades. That was lovely.

There are these marble quarries that are surrounded by swift, clear water. They have done a lot of work to make the place safe for tourists, but one still has to wear a helmet in case of rockslides... MARBLE rockslides. Fantastic. This was in Hua Lien. I loved it there - the weather was beautiful, the drivers were only a little nuts, and the landscape is so foresty green and ocean blue.

Also, Taiwan is known for its corrupt government and delicious food. I did not have to deal with the former, but I definitely indulged in the latter. I forgot to take pictures of that because I snarfed everything the moment it was put in front of me. The fruit is so gorgeous that I wanted to keep it forever. Except that it was also so sweet that I inhaled it by the pound. Mmmm.

Here is a picture of my mother wearing the monkey helmet. I have two things to say about this special little thing.

One: All of the helmets that we saw were white, until we got to a special bag of quite colorful helmets with cute designs on the side. Mom saw the color, but apparently not the design that should have tipped her off that these cute articles of headgear were meant for children. I kind of just let her do what she wants because if you know my mom, she is quirky. This is the woman who taught me important life lessons with finger puppets. Yes, the sex talk, too.

Okay, so we start walking, when she notices that a few children approaching us are wearing the same helmet as she is - but the causality does not register until the third kid. The first time, she says, "Oh, that kid has my helmet." The second time, she looked at me and said, "we're so fun," implying that I am not fun. The third time, she realized that she had stolen protective headgear from children, and asked me why I didn't tell her at the time. I informed her that she is nuts, and that I just assumed this to be more insane behavior on her part. She called me a shit-dickhead.

Second: As you know, I was born in the year of the golden monkey, so my mother likes monkeys. This is interesting, because my mother and I, according to the astrology chart, are supposed to be mortal enemies. She forms a trifecta with the horse and the dog, which, coincidentally, are my father's and brother's signs.

This further reinforces my belief that feng shui and astrology are mostly bunk, with some common sense thrown into the confused mishmash of auspicious how's-yer-father-right-up-the-arsehole. Because my mom and I are BFF and not even the cosmos can really do anything about changing that.

I love looking at the BBC's pictures. Happy-making.

So I have to start preparing for work, again. Booo. Good news - this means READING. YAY. I'm going to re-read Brave New World, 1984, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Scarlet Letter. That should take me through the first month of school. I love Orwell and Huxley so much. In fact, I think that if I was honest with my writer-self, I would want to be George Orwell when I grow up.

Oooh, ooooh. Daisy of Love. I just have to make sure that this gets on the happy list. I know that reality shows are evil, and reality dating shows are the dregs of a degraded society in which nothing is sacred or good or lovely.

But Daisy de la Hoya is so perfectly stupid. I don't mean that cynically. I mean that she is unintelligent, and it does not actually matter. In fact, it works to her advantage and makes good TV. I like that, especially when people who are supposed to be intelligent reveal that they are just as stupid as everyone else - I'm looking at you, Riki Rachtman. "Resolvement" is not a word! You're looking for "resolution."